The National Crime Agency will carry out a nationwide operation to target and jail predators who have sexually exploited children as part of a grooming gang. The operation aims to imprison more perpetrators, protect more victims, and improve how local police forces investigate such crimes. It will also aim to put an end to the culture of denial in local services and authorities about the prevalence of this crime.
The Home Office said police had reopened more than 800 historic cases of group-based child sexual abuse since the home secretary asked them to look again at cases that were closed too early and victims denied justice. A national inquiry announced by the prime minister will be able to compel investigations into historic cases of grooming gang crimes and ensure complaints and allegations of mishandling, wrongdoing, and cover-ups are brought to light.
The inquiry will report to a single chairperson and its panel will have the power to call witnesses to hearings. The grooming gangs issue was thrust into the spotlight, fueled partly by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who criticized the prime minister for not calling a national inquiry. A row between the two centered on high-profile cases where groups of men, mainly of Pakistani descent, were convicted of sexually abusing and raping predominantly young white girls in towns such as Rotherham and Rochdale.
The government had stopped short of launching a statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs despite the idea receiving support from some Labour MPs. Instead, the home secretary unveiled plans for five government-backed local inquiries and a rapid three-month audit into the data and evidence on the nature and scale of group-based child sexual abuse. The report is expected to be published and the home secretary is set to address the findings of the review in Parliament.
For months, the prime minister faced criticism for not being willing to set up a national inquiry, with the Conservatives claiming they had forced him into a U-turn. The shadow chancellor told the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the decision to launch the inquiry should have happened far earlier. The chancellor defended the decision to launch a national inquiry, telling the programme that ministers never dismissed the concerns of victims of grooming gangs.
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